Medic Method

General

So the use of medics in games have been on and off at times, and while current methods seem to work, they aren't great. What I'm familiar with, is the two hand touch 60 second method, which is okay but 60 seconds seems like a great deal of time. The medic is also not as vulnerable as they might seem, as they can still be aware of their surroundings and run away.

Today however, couple of friends at a private game in Viriginia (around 30ish people) came up with a brilliant idea that works REALLY well.

Basically, what the medic needs to do, is tie two ribbons somewhere on the person that he is trying to heal (we bought a cheap huge roll of red ribbons, and cut them into smaller seconds, took a min to do with a big knife). Though it might seem simple and it doesn't take as long as 60 seconds, the reason why this works so well is this:

It requires dexterity. To tie two ribbons under pressure is a lot harder than I originally thought, and actually, getting the ribbons out of the bag itself was a feat with gloves (I had to rock my fingerless hobo gloves). It depends on the person as well. Some people can be better medics than others. Also, because the medic is concentrating on tying the ribbons, he cant pay attention to his surroundings, thus leaving him a lot more vulnerable and have to rely on teammates to help with cover. Makes the game WAY more intense. And its a task that needs to be done, which means that if you provide enough fire to prolong the medic tying the knots, the person can't come back to life, and the team has to adopt a more defensive role, allowing the team at advantage to take the offensive.

The main difference i think, was the fact that the medic had to take his attention away form his surroundings, but depending on the person, took less wasted time than 60 seconds. It was actually fun playing the medic, cause it was actuality a greater challenge.

Anyway, a lot of teamwork was required, especially dragging the guys back behind cover and providing cover fire, but it was doable since it was a private game and everyone else basically knew how each other worked. As for paintball field games or much bigger games with new player or inexperienced players, not sure if it would work as well, but its an idea.

*oh, i forgot to add. It also keeps track of how many heals you had, so you can make fun of people later.

In Calgary at JOC we've been trying out a new system for milsims where the medic reaches into a pouch containing a few "cards" and they contain information on how to deal with the casualty. Each one outlines a different type of wound and treatment. There's some that are as simple as taping a bandage across a certain part of the body (a lot harder than it sounds under fire) and they can be as complicated as giving an IV drip for 3 minutes and taping a wound. To add to it, medic supplies are also limited so the medic has to be resupplied and can't keep running around healing everyone forever.

Ziploc bags full of water for IVs? Little hoses for the ... hoses... dripping the IV stuff into an arm or whathaveyou... just an idea...

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In Calgary at JOC we've been trying out a new system for milsims where the medic reaches into a pouch containing a few "cards" and they contain information on how to deal with the casualty. Each one outlines a different type of wound and treatment. There's some that are as simple as taping a bandage across a certain part of the body (a lot harder than it sounds under fire) and they can be as complicated as giving an IV drip for 3 minutes and taping a wound. To add to it, medic supplies are also limited so the medic has to be resupplied and can't keep running around healing everyone forever.

1+ this is a good way to create realism into games

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The biggest problem with that, is the cost i think. Cost of those cards, bandages, etc. The ribbon cost us 5 dollars, and will last 1+ games. Its also more complicated, and newer players don't really want to do it. It would also piss me off to get an IV drip for 3 min when I just got nicked in the arm.

To elaborate, the kit is almost completely reusable and quite cheap. The cards can be as simple as paper folded with writing on them. The bandages come in big rolls that are a few dollars and I would imagine last a whole season, if not more. Most of the other stuff is improvised and cheap and I'd say at least 80% of the kit is reusable.

The IV is just one of those juice bottles. It's empty and has a small rubber tube coming out of it. You just have to hold it to the casualty's arm for 3 minutes. The point is to get the medic involved and vulnerable. You can't move too much with one of those and 3 minutes is a lot of time.

It's not a terribly complicated system. It really only requires the medic to be knowledgeable and I played the medic at only my second milsim with no issues.

For the love of.....all those above methods reminds me of the days when I was training as an infantry medic.

We use the casualty card method. Usually the medic doesn't see much action since there's only one (or less depending on how short we are) for each platoon. Whenever a person is "hit" the referees will toss a casualty card to the casualty and then he's casevaced back to the platoon fallback position where the medic usually was - somewhere in between the MG and the mortar squads - and we do our casualty treatment drills depending on what "wounds" the individual received and how many casualties we took.

An idea we had in the past was to have every individual carry their own casualty card - this isn't for medic training, more for combat training. The casualty card could be in a card carrier with a lanyard, like those we see on expos and so on. Kept in a pocket by the individual to be taken out and worn around the neck when they are hit. ID carriers and lanyards could be self supplied, medics supply their own sharpie markers, cards could simply be pieces of copier paper cut to size with the individual's name written on it. Low cost, no hassle of re-rolling bandages or having to carry IV bottles. Cards can be tossed away while lanyard and carrier reused.

The medic's job is to remove the card, mark it and then put it back into the card carrier. That takes maybe 20-25 seconds or less and it also helps the individual track how many time's they were hit in a session. Everyone tosses out their cards at the end of it and loser (most hits) buys beer.

I've played both armband and prolonged touch method. I would love to try a combo version ie-Do a quick gross bleed/obvious deformity check and get the fuck outta dodge with the casualty. IVs are not done under fire. A quick "body pat" would take about 30 sec then tie a wound cloth around the arm to evac under their own power(unless you wanna hardcore the hell out of it and drag 'em out)

Advanced medic rules have been used for years out here in central Canada. Typically at milsims what you'll see is medic carrying around rolls of tape, or individual bandages and then applying them to persons injured.

Last game I hosted I actually handed out individually wrapped triangular bandages, worked pretty well as the medics only had about ten of them and needed to be resupplied to provide further medical support.

What I would like to do in the future is put together some "medic bags" (backpack style) that medics will have to carry around. Nothing like extra gear/weight to make a milsim suck more

In the milsims hosted by Victor here in Quebec, we use a similar system, with limited medic supplies, which can be resupplied at the HQ, IF there is supplies...force you to do some kind of triage, and at one point we even had to share bandages between medics because of the shortage of supplies. Makes for good, intense interventions for the medics, and the other players learn quickly to avoid as much as possible getting shot, because even if the medic is near, he may not be able to help you much and you get to walk to the respawn area...

I do like the scorecard idea, though. Getting the most wounded guy in the game to pay me a brew is a nice, conforting thought.

@Aegiis - yeah the scorecard works great for the few times we tried it, its more than 6 years since I left the army and we still rib the guys when we meet up.

Another thing we've been talking about back then was to implement having every individual carry their own IV kits on top of their SOP first aid dressing since IRL every infantyman has his/her own first aid kit. This way the medic doesn't have to carry as much gear and in hardcore milsim plays, the medic just has to pull the first aid dressing out of the wounded player's pocket.

I just signed up for airsoft and haven't been to any games, but hell I hope I don't get into the hardcore ones you guys plan lol -